Wanted to share some information that you might not see elsewhere concerning the critical need for an independent citizens oversight board for the Spokane County Sheriff. Why? Frankly our Sheriff is just not an ethical law enforcement professional. He is a frankly a disgrace. Rather he takes advantage of civilians and even county commissioners….with inadequate LE understandings. He blows smoke. Therefore, only an independent group can produce a far better review and oversight product for taxpayers rather than just looking for typos in the Sheriff’s spoon-fed documentation. Details are as listed below.

The win-win is simply to require inquest panels for all officer-involved shootings and deaths that occur in Spokane County. This should include inmate deaths in the jail too. Can be done quickly by your ordinance with a simple majority vote without any need to meet and confer with the police unions. What is lacking in Spokane is a truly independent review of the investigative work product. This would be an organizational/system check that wouldn’t rely on people. King Co has done this since 2002 and could be used as a simple template.

A longer term project would be to implement a mechanism where citizens can make complaints involving alleged police misconduct and abuse not involving a death. Complaints should be easy to make without having to go into the Sheriffs inner sanctum ……where he believe me when I say this….commonly bullies, badgers, and threatens others via force to sign a statement under penalty of perjury. Both Rob Lee and Ron Wright have firsthand experience with this. The normal citizen would be literally shaking in their boots. I spoke with both of them about this. It results from a narcissistic personality.

The Citizens Advisory Board that the Sheriff is now trying to say does an effective review is clearly a total sham/fraud. Why? Members are hand selected by the Sheriff, kept in the dark and spoon-fed information……like mushrooms. As former Under Sheriff Wiyrick said in a recent Inlander article …. garbage in garbage out. I discussed this with him too.

Believe me….The Sheriff has attempted to dismiss and marginalize supporters of this petition as right wing extremists and those with political axes to grind with him. Not true. The support includes those from the Center for Justice, the Spokane Human Rights Commission, PJALS and the ACLU. Strange bedfellows indeed.

I’ve studied the special Spokane environment and based on my professional education, training and 40 years experience….. inquest panels would quickly raise the professional bar of these investigations. If they are low balled or a law enforcement cover-up is in the works it would be quickly exposed.

There have been a number of questionable deaths by Sheriff’s deputies while perhaps not criminal in nature (Exception of Ryan Holy death where the deputy was going over 70 MPH with no red lights and siren) Scott Creach, Quinton Dodd and William Berger, there are very serious issues of poor or flawed police policy, procedure and training or lack of leadership holding deputies accountable for violations. Difficult job and mistakes will be made. If you don’t learn from them and remediate the causes the civil damage awards will only escalate.

Wright and Wiyrich are extraordinary professionals who are highly ethical LE whistleblowers urging your vote to fix a critical cancer in the Sheriffs Office. We need confidence building measures. This petition does exactly that.